DAMA SESHADRI NAIDU, J.

Issue:

1. The Service jurisprudence, including the judicial precedents, recognizes the doctrine of abandonment: an employee voluntarily giving up his service, say, by continued absence from duty. Here an employee was found to have been continuously absent without leave-on medical grounds though. The employer disengaged him. Has the employer been justified in disengaging the employee on the grounds of abandonment of service despite the employee's defence of illness?

Introduction:

2. Here the petitioners are the employers; the respondent is an employee. When the employee absented himself for long spells from duty, albeit, under the cover of illness; the employer dispensed with his services: It disengaged the employee. Assailing the employer's action, the employee filed O.A. No. 642 of 2008 before the Central Administrative Tribunal, Ernakulam Branch. Through Order, dt.27.08.2009, (Ext.P1) the learned Tribunal directed the employer to reinstate the employee. Amelioratively, the Tribunal permitted the employer to subject the employee to suitable medical tests to ascertain the employee's fitness to resume duty. Aggrieved by the direction of reengagement, th